Fantasia Experience

Sukiyaki Western Django (Takashi Miike)

So Fantasia starts for me with Takashi Miike. I know how warped he can be, and how that can go quite bad or fricking awesome. This time he came up with a western, but using Japanese actors speaking a broken English in a very exaggerated interpretation. It is a parody, and if we are to believe Miike's vision, the Japanese see the American westerns as a pretty darn ridiculous movie genre, and he's happily trying, if not to convert us, at least to make us accomplices in his mockery.

Before the movie began, we were introduced to a very special guest in the audience: Gordon Liu, martial arts legend and maybe most known to normal people as Pai Mei, the weird master that coaches the bride in Kill Bill. He received the standing ovation, and only after doing research for writing this post I realized that the restored 35mm copy of his movie The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, showing the next day, was a very big deal. And I wasn’t going to see it. 50 movies and I was already failing to see relevant stuff. Losing major nerdy points there.

The movie starts with the only American actor in the cast: Quentin Tarantino. It’s a fun response to the brief Miike’s appearance in the Tarantino-produced Hostel, and a public confirmation of their mutual admiration. It’s great that not all American producers are dedicated to present Japanese movies to the masses in the shape of sad, soulless, pointless remakes. Tarantino took the martial arts genre and gave it his own original take. Miike is doing the same with the most American genre, showing what he sees in cowboys stories. All in good fun, and maybe even because of the obvious parody, fascinating. For exactness sake, it might be worth mentioning that the movie hints at the Django character from the Italian trend of "Spaghetti Westerns", thus the name "Sukiyaki Western". So at the end of the day it's a Japanese vision of the Italian version of a very American genre. And whatever gets lost in translation, well, that's the whole point.

The guns are used in a zen way, with the best cowboy just aiming to the air to kill his targets. Samurai swords are drawn. The cowboy attires are mingled with accessories and colors that wouldn’t be out of place in a Kabuki theater. And the movie itself has a play-like feel to it. Sometimes an obvious fake, painted Mount Fuji and sky would be the backdrop. Sometimes the background music is done in the movie, with actors playing the instruments. There’s numerous mentions to the War of the Roses, and a bandit insists his name has changed from Kyomori to a more Shakespearean “Henry”.

Don't be fooled by the poster: This is a wacky comedy with no obligation to coolness. If you like to laugh at pathetic characters and over-the-top situations, this is your movie.

The audience gladly participated, laughing on queue (especially when Tarantino, in a weird old man make-up, utters that he loves to hear the name of one the characters, “Akira”, because he is an “anime otaku”) and offering an ovation at the end.

Audience rating: 5 claps.
Audience best reaction: When the cowboy does the mandatory jump from the window on his horse, with matrix style freeze-frames.

After the movie I briefly crashed the nearby opening party, but as I was already tired and too introspective for my own social good, leaving early and going home to sleep was actually the best idea.

Posted by Fábio on Monday at 11:44 PM | Permalink